Except for couple wins in the last World Cup and 3 non-sequential win against India, Australia and Sri Lanka, our cricket had been wayward. If you look at how they play and what they do in the field, it make you wonder, what exactly are they doing? What is wrong with them? Why do they have to go after that ball 2 feet away from off stump? Why did he had to pool that ball when we are already 4 down? Why did he came down the track like that? Why, why and more why. Things that seems so obvious to fans, somewhere does not make sense to the players. It makes you wonder, what is the root cause of all these? I came up with my own explanation of this, which many of you might find absurd. Well, those of you need to explain why, with logic.

Without further ado, lets get down to business. To find out the reason, the first thing you need to do is to put yourself at the players' shoe. If you are a player of national team, what is your number one concern? Lets talk about batsmen here only. To score runs? To get paid enough? To be a celebrity? No, none of the above. The keywords being 'number one concern', it is to stay in the playing 11. Once you have that secured the rest are irrelevant. If you do not score runs, it does not matter if you still can keep playing, the money will come, and you are already celebrity.

Keeping that in mind, what do you do to stay in the playing 11? You look for example, consciously or subconsciously. You look to see what kept previous ones in the team and what threw them out. This is where the 3 important players come into play, namely Habibul Bashar, Alok Kapali and Rajin Saleh.

To start with, how do Habibul Bashar influence the play of today's cricketers? In test, when all other batsmen were struggling, the only shining star was Habibul Bashar. He scored more runs than anyone else, had more fifties and centuries and got praised the most. What did he do? He used to play hook and pull extensively. This set the psychology today. When no one is successful, if you want to be successful, you need to play a lot of hook and pull and play carefree. Now, clarify first why he was successful. In few words, no one knew much about his playing style nor did many cared. So, he was successful for a while. However, when people knew about his playing style, he was doomed and was never successful again. No one else can be successful following his path either. But somehow our batsmen do not understand that. Hence we see the irresponsible playing style among the current players.

Number two of the list is of course, Alok Kapali the highly talented wonder boy of Bangladesh cricket, or is he? Well, a huge number of people, including fans, media and selectors (I must add here that fans influence media and media influence selectors) thought he was. He was tagged as talented and was given permanent position in the team regardless of performance. Isn't that all today's players want? A permanent position in the team? And Alok example tells them that they need a talented tag to be able to achieve that feet. So, they try to follow Alok, be classy looking when you play shots, everything else is irrelevant. That explain why no one plays according to the team need these days, they are too busy proving themselves talented. And you know how to do that, play shots that are eye catching, getting out does not matter.

Now comes the 3rd example, Rajin Saleh, telling people what not to do. He is the only test grade material of the national team and in the current situation of the ODI a sheet anchor like him is indispensable. Still, we do not see him anywhere near the team. What does that tell the players? If you play test like the rest of the world do, you are not going to have a spot, if you play ODI sensibly, you are not going to have a spot. So, what do you do? Follow Habibul Bashar or Alok Kapali.

Tigers_eye

April 22, 2008, 04:45 PM

Tokai,
I disagree on HB. When he was good he was really good. Lately old age has caught up to him. That's all.

Our batsmen don't follow him. They are more boom boom than him from the very beginning. They do not know what is being tested in a test match.

No one follows Alok either. These baseless explanations needs to be supported by proper references before one can take these seriously.

As for Rajin, I miss him. That is all.

Snowman

April 22, 2008, 10:22 PM

Watching Rajin Saleh play last was great, I miss him on the team.

al-Sagar

April 23, 2008, 12:12 AM

rajin needs to be in the team.

if we can have raqubul islam then why not rajin.

yes raqibul may have the talent and promise, but rajin has the same and more experience.

let raqibul build his promise for A team and let rajin play for national team.

Warlock

April 23, 2008, 12:20 AM

You guys have a point with Rajin Saleh. BTW, wonder what happened to Nafis Iqbal?

cricketboy

April 23, 2008, 12:31 AM

I strongly disagree abt HB. He was successful becasue at that time he was in form and probably age didnt slow down his reflex like now. He was a good batsman between 2000-2006 in test cricket, and maybe he still can play few more tests.

al-Sagar

April 23, 2008, 12:48 AM

You guys have a point with Rajin Saleh. BTW, wonder what happened to Nafis Iqbal?

i saw Nafees iqbal in the VIP grand stand during the BD vs IRE 1st odi. sitting 20-30 ft left to me.

he and 3-4 kids came when BD was batting. they had burgers as lunch and was cheering tamim iqbal. after tamim was out they left.

cricket_fanatic

April 23, 2008, 04:14 AM

Rajin can be good addition to the test team. I always find it surprising how most people in BC just fail to see his value in tests. However, he does have a tendency to get bogged down so don't think he'll bring a lot to the ODI team.

crikfreak

April 23, 2008, 06:54 AM

i don't agree much with any os the 3 reasons.. even though i don't have any explanations.. they certainly can't be playing the way they are for those reasons.. can they?? i think they play that way simply because they don't like playing sensibly.. they are more of the hit and miss kind.. not someone who uses their head... and as for HB.. its not true.. he was in really good form earlier on.. i just think age has caught up with him.. kinda like dravid.. no? you can't say dravid doesn't have talent.. but look at him right now.. he's not what he used to be..

akabir77

April 23, 2008, 09:54 AM

R u kidding me. HB was the only answer he had when he was young/inform. Do you think teams takes decade to figure out what r the players weakness? then you don't watch TEST. All the teams knew he is the one in TEST and if they could get him out quickly they could go early too. And i have seen him all the time they had two players on the leg but he still managed to hook pull or didn't play the shot at all. YES there were times that he didn't play the shot that we think he can't resist.

I agree that players like rajin should be in the both form of the team.

Baundule

April 23, 2008, 02:05 PM

HB was wasted by the selectors. He was not a captain material; but the selectors persisted with him till he was completely destroyed.

roaring tigerz

April 24, 2008, 08:32 PM

terrible post. can't agree with any of these hypotheticals.

1. HB was a genuinely classy batsman and in his prime stood apart from all his contemporaries. He scored over 3000 Test run in career spanning 8 years. The notion of opposition too dumb to care is laughable at best.

2. Alok Kapali was drafted in the team as a bowler but stayed in the side as a batsman. He was and still IS a good prospect in our perenially under-performing batting order. If anything his career was hampered by the constant shuffling of positions and repeated exclusions from the side. He is still young and will make it back to the team. Hinting that the root cause of Ashraful and Aftab's failure lies in the legacy of Kapali is a low-blow. The blame should not go to the players, but the administrators and selectors who throw the players at the deep end and leave them out to dry once they are out of the picture.

3. Rajin has always been on the periphery. He is not in the team because he is not good enough. Simple as that. Whil his workhorse like methods and grit are definite strengths his limited run scoring ability and technical faults are also glaringly obvious. Like everyone else, he has only been kept out after sustained period of failure as a batsman.

akabir77

April 25, 2008, 10:47 AM

t
3. Rajin has always been on the periphery. He is not in the team because he is not good enough. Simple as that. Whil his workhorse like methods and grit are definite strengths his limited run scoring ability and technical faults are also glaringly obvious. Like everyone else, he has only been kept out after sustained period of failure as a batsman.

Can you tell me when he failed sustained period of? I mean what did the other players did when failed if he did so. I do agree with you on other two topic but i think you are laminating him as a poor player as he doesn't have talent.

For god shake he was dropped after scoring a century thinking that he is slow and not for future and we need stroke players. well we know what our stroke players gave us.

I think player like him should be in the team just to send a message to others. Think about this when players like Mash and aftab r seating around but sees a player is training in the nets or in the jim they will feel bad or think that he is making them look bad(which is true) and will do twice the hard work they do right now. Just because of that i would keep him in the team just like dav used to do.

Besides we can't even bat 50 overs i mean 20 overs (in 20/20) so whats the problem if we have a grafter like him in the playing 11. I think other players doesn't want to work hard like him and thats why they always go against picking him in the 11 and hence in ash's area we don't see him. cause lazy people (read talented) don't like hard working people.

Tigers_eye

April 25, 2008, 12:02 PM

2. Alok Kapali ... If anything his career was hampered by the constant shuffling of positions and repeated exclusions from the side...

3. Rajin ... Like everyone else, he has only been kept out after sustained period of failure as a batsman.
All seemed going well untill you said the above stuff.

Repeated exclusions for Alok? How many more chances he needed? Life long membership like Ash-Aftab?

Could you care to swap the colored stuff that I just high lighted please. Then I would agree with you 100%.

BANFAN

April 26, 2008, 10:44 AM

For god shake he was dropped after scoring a century thinking that he is slow and not for future and we need stroke players. well we know what our stroke players gave us.

He scored 2 fifties in his last 20 innings. His last three innings were 0, 0, 0 (No 1 associated) before being dropped.

But ofcourse I also think that he should have been there in the team, he had the temperament of playing a longer innings, in terms of time. He could have improved with time.

More over we don't need so many blind hitters in the team, any way.

Dhruvo

April 26, 2008, 10:57 AM

actually i define rajin saleh as a unique player for bd , because most of the people in bd including amatuers are hitters and for some reason it is hard for us not to hit i even noticed it myself in my own cricket i always have a sr over 100 and i can bet almost everyone i bd who played cricket had 100+sr,so looking at rajins playing style he is definitely unique and is a great talent for us , i just hope he gets a chance again.